Most Metro Vancouver mayors and councillors were re-elected when the ballots were counted Saturday night as voters largely opted to stick with the tried and true instead of turfing incumbents out of office.

Burnaby’s Derek Corrigan, Richmond’s Malcolm Brodie, Coquitlam’s Richard Stewart and Port Coquitlam’s Greg Moore were among the Metro mayors who were returned by wide margins.

Surrey Coun. Linda Hepner took the mayor’s chair in B.C.’s second-largest city, defying expectations of a tight three-way race with rivals Barinder Rasode and Doug McCallum and riding a strong endorsement from outgoing Mayor Dianne Watts, who has left civic politics to run as a federal Tory.

Hepner got more votes than her two main challengers combined and her 21,389-vote margin of victory

over McCallu

m is the largest of any mayor in the province. (The next closest was Corrigan who had 19,265 votes more than the next closest contender in Burnaby.)

It was a closer battle for Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who bested NPA challenger Kirk Lapointe by 10,000 votes. Green Coun. Adriane Carr this time topped the polls although no other Greens made it on Vancouver council and most incumbents were re-elected.

But on the basis of percentage of the popular vote, the most impressive win belonged to Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore, who won 89 per cent of the vote, compared to 68 per cent for Stewart in Coquitlam and 67.4 per cent for Brodie in Richmond. Neither Hepner, with 48.1 per cent, nor Robertson, with 45.9 per cent, got outright majorities.

Sitting mayors did go down to defeat in New Westminster, where Coun. Jonathan Cote replaces Wayne Wright, and in Maple Ridge, where Ernie Daykin lost to Nicole Read.

il, and Port Coquitlam’s Moore, the chair of the Metro Vancouver board, have been the key architects of the mayors’ $7.5-billion transit expansion plan and are now expected to resume work towards a 2015 referendum to approve new taxes for TransLink.

Sitting mayors were toppled further east in the Fraser Valley, with Abbotsford’s Bruce Banman being replaced by Henry Braun, and Mission’s Ted Adlem falling to Randy Hawes, a former B.C. Liberal MLA.

Sharon Gaetz, the chair of the Fraser Valley Regional District, was easily returned as mayor of Chilliwack, with 70.2 per cent of the vote.

Voter turnout was somewhat higher than in 2011 in several of B.C.’s largest cities and generally ranged from 25 to 35 per cent. Vancouver had stronger-than-average voter turnout of 37.5 per cent. (See chart below)